RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Compromise legislation to further encourage the exploration of natural gas in North Carolina doesn’t tinker after all with the schedule on future fracking permits.

Final legislation between House and Senate negotiators was unveiled Friday and is scheduled for a Senate vote early next week. The House also must approve the compromise before Gov. Pat McCrory receives it.

Legislators told a commission last year to draw up hydraulic fracturing rules by October 2014. The two chambers argued this year on setting a March 2015 date for regulators to issue fracking permits. The final bill sets no permit start date, so additional legislative action still would be required after rules are finalized.

The bill also keeps out a Senate proposal to let waste from the fracking process be injected into the ground.

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GASTONIA, N.C. (AP) – Police in Gastonia have charged a man with misdemeanor child abuse after a 19-month-old girl was found wandering in a church parking lot.

The Gaston Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/1553e7F) a woman who was meeting her mother in the parking lot of East Baptist Church Friday morning found Emily Hullender. She said she saw the toddler walking in the parking lot as she drove by, and when she came back around, the little girl was sitting in a nearby yard crying.

Authorities charged 25-year-old Timothy William Hullender, who said he fell asleep while his daughter was sleeping and didn’t know she had gotten out.

Hullender was released on a $20,000 unsecured bond. It’s not known if he has an attorney.